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Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Hollywood Shuffle

Goodbye Lamar

Haz Bey

The Los Angeles Lakers dealt Pau Gasol and Lamar Odom to Houston and New Orleans respectfully for the All-Star point guard Chris Paul. Hold up, wait a minute... David Stern vetoed that trade. So the Los Angeles Lakers welcomed back Pau Gasol and Lamar Odom to organization, but wait there's more. The Los Angeles began to rework the deal to bringing in Chris Paul to Hollywood by sending away Pau Gasol and Lamar Odom, but once again David Stern made it clear that for the Lakers to receive Chris Paul via trade, they would have to give up more than just Pau Gasol and Lamar Odom which was too much for the Lakers to handle, so Lakers gm Mitch Kuptcak pulled out of that deal, but the damage has been done. Lamar Odom felt unwanted and disrespected. He felt the relationship between player and organization has been ruined and he wanted out. Lamar requested to be traded no matter if the Lakers receive Chris Paul or not. So once the Chris Paul deals was over for the Lake-Show, they dealt the reigning 6th Man of the Year to the defending NBA Champion Dallas Mavericks for a trade exception and a 2012 1st round pick. That same Mavericks team that dismantled the then 2-time defending World Champion Lakers in 4 games in last year's semifinal round of the Western Conference Playoffs. Laker captains and 5-time NBA Champions Kobe Bryant and Derrick Fisher are flat out upset by the move and can't find any logical reason for the Lamar's departure. The Lakers by already losing Shannon Brown to the Phoenix Suns by free agency and now Lamar via trade to Dallas, the Lakers are now considerably weaker than they were when they got bounced out the playoffs by Dallas and nobody knows what direction they are going to improve the roster.

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Dwight Howard & Chris Paul

Yes we all think now that the Chris Paul trade failed that the attention focuses on Dwight Howard, but nothing has heated up at least through the media about a deal like that. Now the Lakers definitely have the pieces to get the deal done. They have the 2nd best pure center in the league in Andrew Bynum and the best power forward in Pau Gasol, so it is not like a deal can not be made, but something is holding the deal up. The Magic are so reluctant to send Dwight Howard away, because they have a new arena that has to be filled to capacity every home game and without a main attraction in the likes of a Dwight Howard, the Orlando Magic will be in danger of losing a lot of money throughout the next 5 to 10 years. With that being said, The Los Angeles Lakers are the best team in the NBA when it comes to acquiring talent and the top talent in this league will always want to come to Hollywood to play on the that big stage. It is just a matter of time until the Lakers next huge move is made that will send the NBA into a frenzy. Let the countdown begin.